James Chao net worth: James Chao is a Chinese American entrepreneur who has a net worth of $400 million. James S. C. Chao was born in Jiading District, Shanghai, China in December 1927. He is the founder of the Foremost Group which is a shipping, trading, and finance enterprise based in New York. He has also had the James S. C. Chao Scholarship named after him. He worked as a sea captain and moved to the United States in 1958 and graduated from St. John's University, Queens with a master's degree. Chao founded Foremost Group in 1964 and in 2004 he was inducted into the International Maritime Hall of Fame at the United Nations. He established the Mulan Foundation in 1984 with his wife. Chao and his family donated $40 million to the Harvard Business School in 2012. He met his wife Ruth Mulan Chu Chao in Shanghai and they each separately relocated to Taiwan. Their oldest daughter Elaine Chao became the first woman of Asian Pacific American descent to be appointed to a president's cabinet. Their daughter Angela Chao serves as CEO. His son-in-law, Elaine's husband, is Senator Mitch McConnell.
